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4.47% Out of Space / Chapter 30: Clash of Giants

Chương 30: Clash of Giants

Over 10 wolves ranging from the size of a car to a bus, rushed headlong through the forest and burst out of the foliage, appearing in the 300m strip of cleared land between the trees and the base's perimeter.

Snarls and growls accompanied the creatures, as they sprint against the open ground. "Fire!" James yells as the lead wolf passes the 200m marker. Tracers erupted from his bunker followed soon by the rest as they opened fire too.

The glow of the crisscrossing tracers lights up the new dawn of the day while howls and gunfire scattered the flying creatures from the forest.

"Watch your fire and aim before you shoot!" James peeks out of the bunker while directing his men's fire. "Don't waste ammo!"

Suddenly a huge shadow covers the left side port openings and the whole bunker shooked with a loud thud. A piercing whine could be heard as the wolf broke his paw against the hardened concrete when it tried to smash it away with its paws.

It couldn't understand why is it so tough! It used to be able to sweep the stone and wooden buildings away from the 2 legs! It whimpers in pain and tries to limp away.

"HELLO, MY DINNER! COME TO PAPA!" Mills holler as he fires full auto into the retreating wolf who hit the bunker, making his head hurt. The impact of his bullets pounded the creature's organs to jelly, causing it to vomit blood before it collapses with a earth shaking smash. "Woohoo! Fresh meat tonight!"

James shakes his head at Mills's antics and climbs up the ladder to the reach the tower top. After 3 levels of climbing, he emerges from the ladder to a spacious square room with tiny rectangular viewports giving a panorama view of the surroundings. The 2 security crew members were stationed here and were firing carefully downwards at the attacking wolves.

"How is everything?" James asks as he stood on the firing step and looks out at the surrounding. The sun has started to appear and casting long shadows over the ground while tracers flew hazardously towards the fast-moving wolves.

"Doing fine, corporal!" they replied excitedly, their fear overtaken by the adrenaline rush and success of the kills. "They can't get to us!"

"Good, watch your fire and ammo," James advised. "Make every shot count!" Most of the wolves have fallen, while some others surrounded the bunkers, trying to gnaw at the troops inside. Several wolves ignored the bunkers and rampage around the temporarily built structures at the Base Colony.

He watches a wolf the size of a truck, tramples the survival domes, tearing its tough fabric before getting fired upon by the nearest bunker. It dodges and howls, but under the heavy gunfire, topples over and crushes an abandoned forklift on the side of the road.

James checks his tablet and finds out that the wolves have split into 2 groups of over 20 each, and are attacking in 2 different directions. Damn. These guys are smart! But so far, other than a few damaged equipment and buildings, we manage to hold the line still. Unless that monstrous wolf comes into play.

Sensing that the attack has failed, the alpha wolf howls and the remaining wolves turn tail and retreated, leaving behind a dozen dead and dying. It glares from the cover of the forest, staring with hatred at the Base Colony before it turns and retreats with its brood to lick their wounds.

"Sir, contacts retreating out of motion sensor range."

"Send a UAV after them, see if we can follow them back to their lair this time." The last few attempts did not bore fruit as the UAV infra and thermal sensors couldn't pick them out in the night. Blake turns and asks Ford, "Any casualties?"

"No, sir, other than some shaken nerves, we survived this attack," Ford reports after he checks with every department. "But we depleted quite a lot of our ammunition stores."

"Get the crews out to bring in the bodies, make it quick. I got a feeling that they just fell back to regroup before attacking again." Blake orders. "Also, stop rerouting power to the laser's capacitors. Restore power to the rest of the ship and base." He wipes the sweat off his face, as the temperature had steadily risen up in the bridge throughout the night due to the air conditioners having no power. He couldn't imagine what the rest of the crew inside the ship were facing even with the vents open.

The cargo bay ramps slide out as the massive armored doors cranked open. A couple of forklifts drives down the ramp and headed towards the bodies of the wolves lying all over the Base Colony. Dozens of crew members cling onto the sides of the vehicles as they hitch a ride to begin to clean up of the area.

Mills watches the work crews, hook and tow the wolf carcasses away, "Fresh meat for tonight!" He rubs his gloved hands with glee. "Damn, I am hungry! I want a nice juicy medium rare steak!"

All the soldiers stationed at bunker H-3 have climbed up onto the tower and were watching the work crews cleaning up the battlefield. "Think the wolves had enough? Will they be back?" asked one of the security guys.

"Hell if I know." Mills patted his rifle stock, "If they come again, I just feed them 6.5mms while they feed my tummy!" He laughs at his own joke.

"And someone was almost crying for his mommy the other day..." James couldn't help but make fun of him, making the rest laugh along. James is very glad that his team morale has risen, asks Bartley, "You alright?"

"Yes, Corp," Bartley replies in his usual dull tone. "Just sad for those creatures. They look so noble."

"Noble or not," James pats Bartley on his shoulder, "They are still trying to kill us. We do what we have to do to protect everyone here."

"That we do," Bartley whispers. "The clash of the giants."

The wolves did not return later that day, nor the following weeks ahead.


SUY NGHĨ CỦA NGƯỜI SÁNG TẠO
Neobear Neobear

Hope you guys enjoyed the fight with the horned wolves. =)

next chapter

Chương 31: Wheels

Blake sat on his office chair and went through all the reports sitting on his work desk. Food and water supplies, ammunition consumption, crew morale, and more. Luckily the giant horned wolves donated over 4 tons of meat, helping them greatly with their food supplies.

How am I going to solve the ammunition problem? Over 30% used up in the defense against the wolves, if they attack constantly, they will be down to sticks and stones. Blake held up Lt Frank's report and skim through it.

Black powder? Hmm, we need a saltpeter source if we need potassium nitrate. Blake makes a reminder to get survey teams to head down south along the cliffs and hills to see if they can find any "bat" caves

Senior Chief Petty Officer Gale knocks sharply at the open hatch of Blake's office, "Permission to enter, Sir?" He stood at parade rest outside the office.

"Come in Chief." Blake glances up from his stack of paperwork, glad of the interruption. He pushes back on his seat, thinking even if stranded on an unknown planet, trying to survive, yet paperwork never dies. "At ease, Chief and take a seat."

Chief Gale pulls the chair out and sat down heavily, before handing over a tablet to Blake. "Sir, the vehicle designs are done."

"Oh? That's fast." Blake raised his eyebrows as he scrolls through the designs.

"Yes Sir, the past 2 days due to the wolf raids, we are mostly on lockdown, so the lads had plenty of free time to come out with something." Chief Gale explains. "We also built a couple of prototypes to test."

"What? Really?" Blake's eyes lit up, "Can I see them?"

"Sure you can sir!" And they set off towards the flight decks. Along the way, Chief Gale explains the design they came out with to Blake.

"This way," Chief Gale leads Blake to makeshift garage housed inside the flight deck. "We built up this garage so that it is easier for us to create and test the vehicles."

Sitting in the middle of the garage were 2 vehicles with several mechanics working on them. "Captain on the deck!" Chief Gale bellows. The mechanics instantly stop work and stood at attention.

"At ease," Blake enters the garage and looks with approval at the 2 vehicles sitting there. One is a 4 wheeler while the other was a half-track design, both still looking very barebones, with cables and gears exposed.

Chief Gale points to the 4-wheeler and points out its characteristics. "We took an old jeep design as it was the simplest to build with what we have. It is powered by an overclocked 50kW electric motor salvaged from the auto doors, providing 67 horsepower."

The 4-wheeler has no doors, just a simple car body frame with a driver seat, front passager seat and bench bolted to the back for 2 more passengers. "Of course, since the terrain here has no proper roads, it has 4 wheel drive capability, able to hit speeds up to 110 km/h with a max load of 450 kg and a range of 520 km on a full battery charge."

"Tested?" Blake sat on the driver seat, holding onto the steering wheel. He looks at the primitive design of the steering wheel, gearbox and foot pedals. "How do you drive this thing?"

Chief Gale gives a brief run-through of how the steering wheel, gearbox, and foot pedals work. "This turns the direction of the vehicle, while this controls the speed and this is the accelerator, brakes, and clutch."

After 30mins of explanation and learning, Blake turns the power key on and steps gently on the accelerator. The jeep rolls forward smoothly and exits the garage to the joy and excitement of the mechanics. Blake drove several rounds inside the flight deck before returning to the garage. "That was fun!" He grins at the excited mechanics and Chief Gale. "Very good work! Now we just need to do some outfield trials! What's next?"

"This is the half-track design we came up with. We actually wanted to use 8 wheels to give it good off-road capabilities but we are kinda lacking in rubber." Chief Gale pats the steel hull of the half-track. "For the engines, we pulled several large electric motors off the blast doors. The 200 kW motors provide as much as 260 horsepower, allowing it to transport over 2 tons of load while keeping its top speed at 78km/h."

The half-track looks like a flatbed trailer truck with 2 front wheels while the rear is a caterpillar track, instead of having wheels. "For it's maxed range, the batteries are also good for roughly 480 km on a full charge."

"Why a half-track?" Blake asks, curious. "Shouldn't a 4 or 6 wheels at the rear be better?"

"A few points, Sir. One is due to the placement of the tracks, it spreads the vehicle's weight over a larger area, which gives it greater mobility over soft terrains like mud and snow." Chief Gale ticks off his fingers as he continues. "Relying instead on their front wheels to direct the vehicle, they do not require the complex steering mechanisms of fully tracked vehicles. Next, it is easier to learn to operate than fully tracked vehicles."

"Last of all, rubber. We do not have enough of it to produce enough tires for all the vehicles, thus we opt for tracks, using modular steel plates as we have plenty of steel."

Blake nods before asking, "How long do you need to finish it before starting trial runs?" Blake stands next to the half-track. "And how many can you build and how fast?"

"The jeep is almost done, just needs some finishing touches." Chief Gale rubs his chin as he mentally makes some calculations. "Probably can squeeze out 2 jeeps per week."

"As for the half-track. 1 per week or up to 10 days to produce it. Also same as the jeep, rubber is lacking, unless we change all to tracks, like a tank." Chief Gale looks at Blake. "Including the needs of rubber for the jeeps, I say 12 jeeps and 20 half-tracks is all we can produce."

Blake nods. Once the survey teams have jeeps, they can expand out to find more resources easier. "Alright, that sounds good. Quickly finish the prototypes and run trials, once all tested to run fine, I want production of the jeep and half-track to begin."

"Yes, Sir. Also if you can assign people to start stripping the ship of rubber and other parts, it will help a lot." Chief Gale gave a suggestion.

"Got it, I will assign people to work on it." Blake agrees and continues. "We also need a manual for maintenance and driving, start getting some of your guys who know how to drive to be prepared to teach others."


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